MRAs coming to Winchester University

[winchfem]

Hi everyone,

I've name-changed as this is quite outing, but I wanted to ask for some support regarding a problem at my university. I've learned today that two members of Justice for Men and Boys, namely Mike Buchanan and William Collins, have been booked by a member of staff to give talks on the first of March. Many people I know have rallied to create a petition which might at least postpone these events if not cancel them completely. I was hoping, if you can spare the time, that some users in this topic might be able to lend their signatures?

The petition can be found here.

I really appreciate it if you can but have no hard feelings if you can't, it just seemed like the best place to ask. Thanks in advance.

I'll duck out now

I just worry about baby / bathwater as I mentioned.

The examples of a foreign criminal and another dubious foreigner are not relevant here. Any state has the right to decide it will exclude dubious characters and frequently does.Mike Buchanan is a British citizen invited to speak at a university, and isn't, as far as I'm aware a convicted criminal.

So far as harassment of anyone attending an abortion clinic that is an offence in its own right. Those actions have nothing to do with free speech. In the case of exclusion zones around clinics whilst I did sign a petition in suppot I'm not even sure I support them 100%. I definitely do not support the proposition that was discussed on here once that pro-life groups should be banned from distributing leaflets on campus.

It's a fine line, for sure.

I have real problems with anti-abortionists accosting women outside clinics/blocking entrances - because that's actual harassment of vulnerable women. But I support anti-abortionist's right to free speech/opinion. Just not outside clinics. Lobby parliament.

I was also pleased when the PUA was banned - because he advocates rape. He really does - he thinks rape on private property shouldn't be a crime, so if you can get a girl back to your house......blah blah

Sorry I worded that PUA one badly. You get the just. He advocates rape culture.

That's my only point. You are all fully within your rights to disagree with me, obviously!

Actually I think I agree with your point (since you don't apply it to this case or similar). It does not harm to have people making the counter arguments- sometimes these threads get a bit group thinky. 5 years ago I suspect most people would have been backing the OP.

The debate about no-platforming aside, I thought it was interesting to see the handmaidens on that Buchanan’s twitter. All these MRAs have a fair few women in their orbit who call themselves anti-feminists or whatever.

Just got me musing about the precedent of women colluding with those who promote a deeply misogynist worldview, and conning themselves they’re not turkeys voting for Christmas. It is a Thing, evidently.

Those women have always existed - they're like the ones who actively campaigned for women not to have the vote. They make me sad for them, but they don't prevail.

Delicate flowers aren't they? I can't imagine Posie or Germaine vaulting at 700 signatories. Lacking the masked men and baseball bats that accompany this sort of thing against women.

Baulking ffs

why what has Justice for Men and Boys done?

Up thread a pp mentioned prostate ça screening being lower profile than cervical or breast ça. The reason for this is prostate ca is a slow growing cancer affecting elderly men. A relative has it and has been told he will die with it not of it. Compare that to the young women who die in their prime. Jade Goody was under 30 I think. Its not comparing like with like.

This has a list of research funding by cancer type - top 10 by research funding.

Cervical, ovarian, endometrial, uterine cancers are not on that list. Prostate cancer does get around half the funding of breast cancer but it is not true that there are more deaths from prostate cancer than breast cancer.

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/why-do-some-forms-of-cancer-receive-more-research-funding-than-others-9771396.html

I wish I hadn’t read his speech, it’s giving me the rage - the unfounded assertion that there are thousands of wrongly convicted men in prison for rape convictions is staggering, given the low conviction rate as it is.

The fury over 25% of MPs being female when only 10% of applicants are female is also infuriating.

After the recent stuff that’s been printed from the book Invisible Women, it’s no surprise that women aren’t doing jobs where the role and environment are designed for men.

There’s so much barely veiled contempt for women, I feel quite ill.

That's a real shame he's been no-platformed, I'd have loved it if he came to my University.

It's very concerning that students feel so incapable of challenging ideas and debating things these days.

If he's been invited, he should speak.

I would question why he's been invited, though. Would you love to know the thought process behind that decision.

He was invited by the department of masculine studies.... 🙄

I can imagine a department of masculine studies having the potential to be a force for good, but this invitation isn’t very promising, is it?

He was invited by the department of masculine studies....

Woah. So all the women's studies courses went to make way for "gender theory" but "masculine studies" is a whole department somewhere?

He was invited by the department of masculine studies

I was worried that ds1 may be missing out on something..but nope

Masculine studies? Well thats a new one on me

Ds1 is doing history...isnt that pretty much masculine studies?

Sorry, I misquoted - they were invited by a “Professor of Masculinities”

Sounds even worse

Sounds even worse

It does.

I agree that a few yrs ago this board would have been supportive of the petition. I expect other feminist forums would be now.

It was the no platforming etc that alerted me to the fact something was off with trans rights activism and led me to get more involved here as I am interested in freedom of speech generally, and think its at risk.

I actually don't think it is necessarily wrong for a professor of masculinites to invite someone who is having some influence on the issue - there is no point only hosting one side of the debate. It depends how it was done and if his ideas were going to be challenged and critiqued. And if other viewpoints would be platformed.
I wonder if the petition etc was mainly students.

I found this word salad from the University of Calgary and it's Masculinity Chair:

Masculinities Studies research operates from a profeminist standpoint. As such researchers in the field conduct research that draws on feminist theories addressing gender identities. Specifically masculinities scholars argue that masculinities are fluid, socially constructed and that the ways in which boys and men take up “projects of masculinity” are connected to power relations. Along this line masculinities studies draws on feminist stand point to interrogate how and when men enact, perform masculinities and how this intersects within a matricies of power including sexualities class, and raced identities.

Doesn't sound bad. If the Winchester professor has the same slant, maybe it was a debate point, not an endorsement.

Forgive the grammar. Mine and theirs.

I suppose now that "gender" has been hijacked to mean something very specific, there isn't really a snappy word available to bring Women's Studies and "Masculinities" together as one area of Social Science. Irritating. "Sex Studies" wouldn't really work.

There's an asymmetry between the terms too (can you imagine a professor of "Femininities"?) but that's the result of decades of sociological enquiry using certain terms, so probably better not to try to excavate that one here. Suffice to say that sex/gender studies are evidently very gendered

So there used to be "women's studies" - then that changed to "gender studies" - which I'm still pissed off about - but now there is "masculinities" ? What a joke!

I suppose the joke's on women (as usual).